Traffic over the damaged bridge to occupied Crimea is already running again with restrictions. The political and military consequences of the alleged attack are still open. Ahead of a potentially crucial meeting of his National Security Council, Russia's ruler Putin chooses strong words.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the Crimean bridge explosion as an "act of terrorism" for which the Ukrainian secret services are responsible. "The perpetrators, executors and clients are the Ukrainian secret services," the Russian news agencies quoted the Kremlin boss as saying. "There is no doubt. This is an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critical civilian infrastructure in the Russian Federation," Putin said.
Russian citizens and foreign states helped prepare the terrorist attack, said the head of the national investigative agency, Alexander Bastrykin, at a meeting with Putin, from which the state media published video clips. The Kremlin has announced that Putin will meet with the Russian National Security Council this Monday. A possible response to the attack could be discussed there.
The strategically important and symbolic bridge was badly damaged on Saturday. According to Moscow investigators, a truck loaded with explosives coming from the Russian side is said to have exploded. As a result of the detonation, several tank wagons of a freight train filled with diesel caught fire on the higher railway bridge. As a result, three people died. The bridge was reopened to traffic on Saturday evening, but with severe restrictions.
The explosion on the only connecting bridge between Russia and Moscow-annexed Crimea has sparked international fears of a further escalation of the conflict. Ukraine, which has been fighting a war of aggression by Russia since the end of February, has repeatedly announced that it will take back Crimea. The military leadership in Kyiv also announced that the bridge facilities would be shelled as soon as the heavy weapons supplied by the West were available. Russia, in turn, stressed that an attack on the bridge would be a clear crossing of the red line. Commentators in the Russian media had called for consequences after the attack on the strategically important bridge.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not yet commented on the explosion. Those around him expressed contradictory views. "It is worth noting that according to all indications, the truck that exploded entered the bridge from the Russian side," Zelenskyy's adviser Mykhailo Podoliak told the online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda. "So the answers should be sought in Russia," Podoliak added. However, he previously tweeted that the explosion was only "the beginning" and continued: "Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled."
